SRE aims at:

  • Deep physical understanding, design tools, implementation and assessment of smart electromagnetic nodes for smart radio environments (SREs). In particular: metamaterials, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, smart skins, smart antennas, active repeaters, energy harvesting solutions, signal processing algorithms for communication and sensing.
  • Demonstration of lab-scale SREs for well-defined use cases.
  • Meet the KPIs for 6G wireless systems through reduced complexity, cost effective, energy effective, environmentally friendly and green solutions.

SRE is part of Spoke 7 – Green and Smart Environments

In light of the digitalization of the healthcare processes, the use of Information Technology tools in the health sector is becoming widespread. Indeed, there are several technologies that have been proposes to optimize the health processes and there has been also a boost after the pandemic emergency for improving the employment of telemedicine services. The teams has been investigating the presence of 6G in the telemedicine service in order to understand the state-of-the art in this field.  
Covid-19 pandemic has brought to light all the issues faced by people who don’t live in city-centers equipped with hospitals or healthcare facilities. The improvement of telemedicine and, more in general, all the healthcare tele-services (e.g., teleconsultant, telerehabilitation, televisit) may be fundamental in the modern society also for a better management of territorial medicine. A development in the field may be the exploitation of data carried out from telemedicine services of hospitals in order to provide healthcare policy makers with the actual state-of-the-art of the telemedicine use. Despite being more difficult due to the big need of data, another future development might be the introduction of AI-based techniques on data acquired through a telemedicine service.
Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) represent the most promising Key Enabling Technology candidate to take on the challenges of 6G systems in terms of dramatically reduced latency and ultra-high capacity.

The project S12 – SRE proposes new key-enabling technologies for the realization of smart radio environments based on reconfigurable intelligent metasurfaces to overcome the current limitations of 5G technologies in order to handle ultra-high capacity, near-zero latency, and high energy efficiency.

The project aims to combine the strong expertise of groups in Italy working in the fields of wireless communication and electromagnetic theory, with the goal of exploring this new technology and making it suitable for enabling the new paradigm of smart radio environments, allowing the Country to play a relevant role in Europe and worldwide in the communications of the future.

The main outcomes achieved so far can be summarized as follows:
  • Innovative metasurface design approaches for the implementation of RIS, even energy autonomous.
  • Algorithms for optimal RIS configuration and novel metasurface-based approaches for improved communication performance in terms of coverage, data rate, reduced latency, and energy consumption.
  • RIS-Aided Localization and imaging: New solutions exploiting passive frequency-selective metasurfaces for localization and sensing in non-line-of-sight conditions, achieving centimeter-level accuracy.
1. Publications
  • Expected: at least 60 publications in 36 months
  • Accomplished: 30
  • Readiness Level: 150%
2. Joint publications (at least two partners of RESTART)
  • Expected: >=30% joint publications in 36 months
  • Accomplished: 30% (9/30)
  • Readiness Level: 100%
3. Talks/Keynotes/Communication Events
  • Expected: 20 talks within SRE activities in 36 months
  • Accomplished: 4 (among dissemination events and conference presentations)
  • Readiness Level: 60%
4.Organization of workshops/special sessions/webinars
  • Expected: 10 events chairing/organizing within SRE activities in 36 months
  • Accomplished: 5
  • Readiness Level: 150%
5. Meetings/presentations with/to companies:
  • Expected: 10
  • Accomplished: 3
  • Readiness Level: 30%
6. Project Meetings
  • Expected: > 30 meetings
  • Accomplished: 12 meetings
  • Readiness: 40%
7. Patents/Innovations
  • Expected: 10 items over 36 months
  • Accomplished: 2 (1 patent, 1 innovation)
  • Readiness Level: 60%
8. Demo/Poc
  • Expected: at least 3 PoCs expected by the end of the project
  • Accomplished: 0
  • Readiness Level: 0% (according to the plan)
9. Open source contributions
  • Expected: at least 1 expected by the end of the project
  • Accomplished: 0
  • Readiness Level: 0% (according to the plan)
10. Standardization contributions
  • Expected: none
  • Accomplished: 0
  • Readiness Level: N/A
Identifying the state of the art of the latest applications of 6G in telemedicine services.

D1: Passive smart EM nodes - Initial report
Due date: 30/6/2023
Status: Accomplished
Readiness level: 100%

D2: Communications, localization, and sensing in SREs - Initial report
Due date: 30/6/2023
Status: Accomplished
Readiness level: 100%

D3: First report on dissemination activities
Due date: 31/12/2023
Status: Accomplished
Readiness level: 100%

D4: Modeling and design of Smart Radio Environments - Intermediate report
Due date: 31/3/2024
Status: Expected
Readiness level: 90%

D5: Proof of concept and performance evaluation - Intermediate report
Due date: 30/6/2024
Status: Expected
Readiness level: 0%

D6: Passive smart EM nodes - Intermediate report
Due date: 30/6/2024
Status: Expected
Readiness level: 30%

D7: Active smart EM nodes: smart repeaters and integrated access & backhauling nodes - Intermediate report
Due date: 30/9/2024
Status: Expected
Readiness level: 0%

D8: Communications, localization, and sensing in SREs - Intermediate report
Due date: 30/9/2024
Status: Expected
Readiness level: 30%

D9: Second report on dissemination, communication, and technology transfer
Due date: 30/9/2024
Status: Expected
Readiness level: 0%

D10: Modeling and design of Smart Radio Environments - Final report
Due date: 31/3/2025
Status: Expected
Readiness level: 0%

D11: Passive smart EM nodes - Final report
Due date: 30/6/2025
Status: Expected
Readiness level: 0%

D12: Active smart EM nodes: smart repeaters and integrated access & backhauling nodes - Final report
Due date: 30/9/2025
Status: Expected
Readiness level: 0%

D13: Communications, localization, and sensing in SREs - Final report
Due date: 30/9/2025
Status: Expected
Readiness level: 0%

D14: Proof of concept and performance evaluation - Final report
Due date: 31/12/2025
Status: Expected
Readiness level: 0%

D15: Final report on dissemination, communication, and technology transfer
Due date: 31/12/2025
Status: Expected
Readiness level: 0%

Project PIs: Davide Dardari / Daniele Riccio

Collaboration proposals:
The team could benefit from collaborating with healthcare facilities employing telemedicine services in their clinical routing.
For any proposal of collaboration within the project please contact the project PIs.

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